Sunday, August 24, 2008

Stuff That Caught My Eye

The title of this post says it all. Here are a bunch of links to things that have caught my eye of late but about which I am too lazy, busy, or unmotivated to comment:

It took a bit of tracking down, as the New Republic seems to have disappeared the link, but here is a version of Jonathan Chait's glorious evisceration of the state of Delaware. I love the Joe Biden pick, but he comes from a little pustule of a state.

At Foreign Affairs Robert Kagan looks at the post-Bush world in "The September 12 Paradigm." This article represents the early stages, not the final word, in assessment, of course. My guess is that this will be one of those dialogues that we never quite resolve, as is the case with most ideologically and politically fraught issues with long-range ramifications.

Several New York Times articles have grabbed my attention in recent days, including Allan Barra's revisiting of John Carlos' and Tommie Smith's 1968 Olympic protest, the travel section's return to one of my favorite countries, Namibia, Robert McFarland's fairly brutal takedown of Paul Theroux's latest travel book, and Bill Keller's considerably kinder review of John Carlin's book on Nelson Mandela and the 1995 Rugby World Cup. I just ordered the Carlin book, as I am in the final stages of an article on rugby, race, and nationalism in South Africa since 1994 and the 1995 Springbok triumph plays a large role, as you might well guess. As for Theroux, I tend to enjoy his travel writing, especially his early stuff, but the man can be insufferable. Plus, one more serious problem I have with his work is that I wonder how reliable he is. No one expects a great deal of depth with someone who covers so much ground, but in Dark Star Safari, his tale of trekking from Cairo to Cape Town, he gets so much rudimentary stuff wrong or mangled about southern Africa that I cannot help but wonder what else he gets wrong about all of those other places about which he has written that I do not know so well.

At his Atlantic blog Mark Ambinder imagines a conversation between an Obama supporter worried about the state of the Democratic campaign and one who by and large is not. It's gimmicky, of course, but worth a perusal. My own view is that we live in times when both parties are pretty much guaranteed about 40% of the vote in a presidential election, but neither party is guaranteed 50%. This has been the case since at least 1992. Why is anyone surprised that it looks as if the 2008 election will be close?

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

i just found out you deleted my other comments on Zimbabwe, on the post we first argued on. would you mind deleting all my further comments, for if my point of view was not expressed fully, i would prefer all my argument to be deleted. i am sure you understand what i mean.this will be my last post on any of your blogs, so i hope you can do this as a final at of mutual respect. If not, then fair enough, i will respect you a little less, but it is up to you.thank you, Danny.

Danny -- I've told you before, it's not up to me to do so. My editors do not want me deleting comments strands except in exceptional circumstances. I made it clear that the posting on that post was done. After making that point you insisted on trying to comment more. That post is some 14 months old -- I assure you no one but you even knows it exists.

okay, fair enough, i just never like not having all of my argument down, but fair enough. i do not care if others see it or not, it is more of for my own well being i ask it, but fair enough, as i said, i would have preferred we end it with all our points down, but it was not to be, and i am fine with it.

Your entire argument was heard. Your points got down. You then insisted on continuing to try to post comments after i made clear that the conversation was done, most of your new comments being about not being able to post comments.

Enough. I did not want to continue that conversation over there and I damned well am not going to continue it here. No more about that issue.

but my final post was deleted, but as i said, i have had enough of it. i would not mind another talk of history, any topic you would like, ad i will not seek an argument from it, for those who do that are petty.

For fuck's sake Danny, let it go. I deleted nothing until after i made it clear that the conversation was done. This is not the place, that post is well more than a year old. Do not reply to this comment. If you do, you're done commenting here. I will delete every comment that comes across my desk. Let. It. Go.